MASCOT: Multi-Criteria Analytical SCOring Tool for ArcGIS Desktop

Multicriteria Analytical SCOring Tool (MASCOT) is a decision-support tool based on spatial analysis that can score items (points, lines, and polygons) as a function of their Euclidian distance to other data (points, lines, polygons, rasters). MASCOT is integrated with ArcGIS 9.3.1 and makes it possible to achieve a complete workflow that may include data preparation and grouping of factors by theme, weighting, scoring, post-processing and decision-making. To achieve the weighting process, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been integrated. MASCOT was originally developed for the demining community, with the purpose of prioritizing clearance of mine hazards as a function of their distance to a set of predefined and measurable factors. We show here an example based on mine action data, but MASCOT is not limited to this community and many other application fields will benefit from it.